Impressions and search queries help
-
Hello,
In the past month alone, my website www.shiftins.com has had a significant drop, about 50%, in my overall impressions and search queries (info from Google WMT). Now my target keywords have maintained their rankings but it looks like my site has dropped off the map for every other search term. I have not received any unnatural link warnings or anything of that sort so I don't think I have been penalized. Does anyone have an idea of what might have caused the decline and is there a solution to restore my prior status?
-
IMHO It's not likely, just an algo change.
-
You have been extremely helpful Bryan Thank you very much. So you don't think my site has been penalized?
-
Yes this should help, I would focus on earning new links by creating real value to your audience/users...
What are they searching for and what is the quickest way to deliver this message. As long as you are adding value and building a clean link profile you should rank again.
-
Thank you this is what I suspected since only non target keywords went down. So do you think if I start changing my anchor text and start building new links using only branded anchors to dilute my exact match, that i will be able to regain my search queries or is this also an over all link quality penalty?
-
First you must diagnose you anchor links. Are most of them linking in using exact keyword phrases? or are they mostly linking in with your Brand Name/URL?
A natural linking profile is 50% brand keyword phrases and your URL, 25% Diverse anchor text (ie. how to "keyword"), 25% Exact keyword.
If you linking ratio is not like this it might be the cause for your problem. To fix this you will need to contact all the sites that are linking to yoursand ask them to change the anchored link to your brand name.
Hope this helps.
-
Thanks do you have any recommendations for how to recover?
-
There was a Penguin (http://mozcast.com/events) update on Oct 5th. THis update was targeting sites with low quality links and search engine manipulative link profiles.
-
Thanks for the response. It happened 10/06/12 and has continued to the present. There have not been any additional changes besides the addition of a video (around 10/16) and of course a few new links. Is there any other insight you may have?
-
It all depends on when you lost your rankings and if there were any recent changes that may have caused the drop.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Search Console Click Through Results
Hi Moz Community, I've newly started using Google's search console on a regular basis, and I have a query about the results coming from the platform. For example, I added this article URL to the console with field "URL containing" and "URL exact", and the results showed 71 clicks and 436 impressions over 12 months. However, when looking at the queries that show in the results to see where the clicks are coming from, all of them state there's no clicks from the dozen or so queries that show. Am I doing something wrong here? Is there a field I need to fill in to show more results/top results? I've tested a few article URL's and the same has happened. Thanks in advance for any help.
Algorithm Updates | | FunktionEvents1 -
Help - Losing Ranking on Plural Keywords in Google
Help! I'm losing keyword rankings for certain keywords - but still ranking well on others. The trend I can see is that we're losing rankings on plurals, so this page https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/platform-trolleys-trucks Used to rank well for: platform trolleys
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey
platform trucks
flat bed trolleys But now only ranks well for platform trolley flat bed trolleys platform truck I have seen a large number of keywords drop out - they're not hitting traffic massively yet, but conversions are dropping - help! I;m struggling to find the cause!0 -
Google Search Analytics desktop site to losing page position compared to the mobile version of the site
Looking at Google Search Analytics page position by device. The desktop version has seen a dramatic drop in the last 60 days compared to the mobile site. Could this be caused by mobile first indexing? Has Google had any releases that might have caused this?
Algorithm Updates | | merch_zzounds0 -
Help Me Change My Client's Mind
My client wants to build a second site to provide targeted links for SEO to his main site. He's interested in buying a TLD with some near topic authority/links and then build the second site's authority up from there. He is clear that this could get him in trouble for a link scheme, but thinks it can all be hidden from Google. Off the top of my head I was able to recall a few of the pain-in-the-neck things you'd have to do to not get caught, but he seemed unconvinced. I recall you'd have to have: Different registrar Different contact/WhoIs Different site host Different G/A, GWT Logging into second's site's G/A, GWT with different IP address not used for main domain With the exception of the last one, he didn't seem to think it would be too hard. Aren't there more difficult maneuvers required for hiding this from Google? I want to be able to point out to him how ridiculous this low integrity effort will be, without losing the client. Thanks! Best... Darcy
Algorithm Updates | | 945010 -
QA for Sitelinks Search Box
hi all, I have added the suggested code to my homepage as follows: This was added 10 days ago. I continue to see on Google SERPs a search box sitelink, but it produces a page of results on a secondary SERP page for my site instead of bringing people directly into my site to the search result page relative to their query. Is there a time lag from the time the code was implemented to when it is functional on Google? Is there any way to QA the code to ensure it works correctly and if Google has yet to include it in their latest cache?
Algorithm Updates | | dsinger0 -
Google domain search
Hello all, I'm a newbie to SEO, so you'll have to bear with me. I just started a website LangleyHomeSaerch.com a few months ago and am having trouble ranking with google. When I search "Langley Home Search" with Yahoo or Bing, it comes up on the first page. However when I search it with google it doesn't seem to rank even in the first few hundred pages. The only way I can get a match from google is if I search "Langley HomeSearch" or "LangleyHomeSearch". I know due to google's newer algorithms that there is less importance put on domain name matches, but is this normal, or is there anything I can do to improve it? Thx, Colby Langley, BC
Algorithm Updates | | colbygedak0 -
Google Search CTR % By Position
Hello I am looking for an updated report regarding the CTR % by position for Google search results. I have the compete.com report which Gives the 1st organic position a 53% CTR but I have not be able to duplicate that number with any other report or research. I am just trying to validate this report before I suggest any recommendations to my company regarding our search efforts. Thank you Ben
Algorithm Updates | | bhalverson30 -
Do Google donations to Wikimedia show any bias in search results?
Over the weekend we learned Google co-founder Sergey Brin donated $500,000 to Wikimedia, the parent company of Wikipedia.com. Last year I believe Google donated $2 million to Wikimedia. I now ask, is this suspicious in anyway, seeing that Wikipedia ranks so well in Google for so many terms? There are several blog posts about it online here and there throughout the years, but what does everyone think?
Algorithm Updates | | DanDeceuster0